Contested European citizenship: Results from a 13 country survey

Abstract

European citizenship consisting of equal economic, social and political rights for all EU citizens has come under pressure in recent years due to the different crises the EU had to face. Based on a survey conducted in 13 EU member states we examined to what extent EU citizens support the notion that citizens from other European countries should enjoy the same rights as nationals. Overall, 56% of EU citizens support the idea that citizens from other EU member states (EU migrants) and national citizens shall be treated equally. In addition, we find remarkable variation between the countries. Multivariate analyses indicate that cultural factors on the individual and the country level have a strong impact on attitudes towards Europeanized equality, whereas structural factors that are related to individuals’ and a countries’ socioeconomic position are only of minor importance.

Keywords

European citizenship european integration equal rights legitimacy survey research

Introduction

In his famous essay ‘Citizenship and Social Class’, Thomas H. Marshall argues that the granting of citizenship rights is one of the central mechanisms of integrating citizens into a nation state (Marshall, 1950). In some regard, this argument applies to the European Union (EU), too. By establishing a European citizenship consisting of economic, political and social rights, the EU has completed the nation-state concept of equality of all nationals with the idea of a Europe-wide equality for all Europeans (Bellamy, 2008; Börner, 2020). Although in practice there are certain restrictions depending on the employment status of a person and on institutional differences between member states (Bruzelius et al., 2017), in principle all EU citizens are entitled to access every European labour market, to politically participate at the local level and to receive social benefits from respective national welfare systems, irrespective of the EU country they currently reside in. However, the institutionalization of European citizenship rights is only one side of the European integration coin, as legal regulations ultimately require the citizens to believe in the legitimacy of the regulations. Thus, the leading question of this study reads as: Do Europeans support the notion of European citizenship, namely that all Europeans should be granted equal rights?

The legitimacy of European citizenship has come under pressure in recent years. One of the main reasons why a majority of Britons voted to leave the European Union was that they did not want other EU citizens, especially from Eastern Europe, to have the right to live and work in the United Kingdom (UK) (Goodwin and Milazzo, 2017). The idea of equal rights has also been questioned in other European countries. Several countries tried to deny or reduce social benefits for EU migrants, either through legislation or in practice. Euroskeptic parties have increased in importance in many EU member states. In their opinion, the nation state and not the EU is the true sovereign; and thus, sovereignty rights should be returned from EU institutions to the member states, borders between them should be controlled and the number of migrants coming from outside and inside Europe should be reduced (Brack and Startin, 2015).

Against this backdrop, we examine to what extent citizens oppose or support the notion that citizens from other EU member states should enjoy the same rights as themselves within their nation state. Our study contributes to the broader sociological field of research on horizontal Europeanisation and transnationalisation of beliefs and everyday behaviour of European citizens (e.g. Heidenreich, 2019; Recchi et al., 2019). If our findings would show a rather high degree of legitimation of equal rights whilst differences between countries and conflict lines between specific social groups remain rather weak, this might indicate a further step in the direction of a transnationalised Europe.

Drawing on the literature on attitudes towards migration on the one hand and on cleavage theory on the other, we attempt to explain differences in peoples’ attitudes within and between countries. In an original survey conducted in 13 EU member states in 2016, we asked respondents whether they support the notion that citizens from other EU member states (EU migrants) should be allowed to work in their country, should be permitted to vote in local elections and should receive the same social security benefits as nationals.

Results show that 56% of the respondents support the idea that EU migrants and national citizens should be treated equally. In addition, we reveal a remarkable variation between countries: Whereas in eight countries a majority is in favour of European citizenship, people in other member states of the EU oppose this idea. Multivariate analysis indicates that ideational factors on both the individual and the country level have a strong impact on the attitude toward European citizenship, whereas structural factors related to an individual’s and a country’s socioeconomic position are only of minor importance. Anti-cosmopolitan attitudes, political right-wing orientations, identification with the nation state and the strength of anti-immigrant parties in a country are the most important factors explaining attitudes towards European citizenship.

From national to European citizenship

The European integration process has not only changed the institutional settings of the EU member states but has also transformed the notion of citizenship. Using the terminology of Thomas H. Marshall (1950), we differentiate between civic, political and social rights at the EU level. Firstly, open access is granted to all national labour markets within the EU for all EU citizens (Maas, 2008). Secondly, since the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has guaranteed several fundamental political rights for all EU citizens (freedom of speech and assembly, right of petition, freedom of association and the right to elect the European Parliament). These rights also include the right to vote and to stand as a candidate for municipal elections in the member state of residence. Thirdly, freedom of movement appends additional rights, which are connected to welfare privileges (Bruzelius and Seeleib-Kaiser, 2017; Ferrera, 2005), including the entitlement to the same social security and tax benefits as nationals, as well as the right to subsidized housing. Moreover, according to these rights, every foreign EU employee is entitled to live with their family, and the family is entitled to receive the same family allowances as nationals. Although in principle, all EU citizens have the same rights, there are some limitations especially in the field of social rights (Bruzelius et al., 2017; Seeleib-Kaiser, 2018). Some social rights are linked to the economic status of a person: People working in other EU countries gain access to the same social rights as national citizens, only after having resided in the country for a certain time. In addition, EU migrants without worker status only have very restricted access to social assistance during the first five years of residence. Special rules also apply to pensioners. The individual legal provisions are very complex and cannot be explained further here (more detailed information can be found in Seeleib-Kaiser, 2018). However, these specifications and limitations do not change the principal idea that nationals and EU migrants have the same rights and must be treated equally, which is codified in the principle of non-discrimination in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

Although European citizenship rights have been in effect for decades, they have rarely been used in a practical manner until their extension to the citizens of the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe in the 2000s, and the subsequent economic and political crises in several European member states (Marchand et al., 2019). In the years after, intra-EU migration increased, especially from poorer to richer EU countries (see Eurofound, 2014; European Commission, 2020). In addition, intra-EU migration gained political salience, especially within the frame of Eurosceptic sentiments, as the discussion on the Brexit referendum shows (Vasilopoulou and Talving, 2019). The economic and financial crisis that hit many EU countries after 2008 may also have influenced citizens’ attitudes, as some studies suggest (e.g. Serricchio et al., 2013). Finally, from 2015 on, Europe has experienced a rapid increase in the number of asylum seekers in the EU, especially those from Middle Eastern countries, which might also have affected European citizens’ more general attitudes towards migration, intra-EU migration and the permeability of borders (Gerhards et al., 2019). These developments culminate in the current situation, in which the legitimacy of European citizenship is being contested in the public sphere, especially by Eurosceptic parties.

There have been several studies examining the acceptance of different rights associated with European citizenship. Eurobarometer (EB) data survey shows that 40% of the respondents agreed with the statement that EU foreigners, who stand as candidates in municipal elections, should have the same rights as all other elected candidates, while another 23% agreed with the same statement but excluded the right to become mayor (European Commission, 2018). Based on the analysis of another Eurobarometer survey, Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) showed that a respondent’s high social status, a low identification with the nation state, as well as living in a less prosperous country (measured by the country’s GDP) have significant positive effects on the acceptance of freedom of movement. Additionally, they revealed several interaction effects between country’s economic situation on the one hand and individual characteristics on the other: The individual effects only manifest themselves in richer countries, whereas in poorer countries, approval does not substantially vary between social status and identification. Using data from a survey conducted in six EU countries in 2016, Ferrera and Pellegata (2018) reveal that in five out of six countries, citizens who are more vulnerable to economic and symbolic threats generated by the free movement of EU workers, are more likely to oppose European equality on the labour market.

However, mechanisms revealed by Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) and Ferrera and Pellegata (2018) do not necessarily apply to the political and social dimension of European citizenship rights, as they only cover two out of the three rights that constitute European citizenship. Furthermore, items used by EB surveys have been formulated in a very broad manner. Studies show that respondents often deviate from their value beliefs if they anticipate costs and unpleasant consequences (Diekmann and Preisendörfer, 2003). The items used in the Eurobarometer specify general attitudes towards equal rights for all EU citizens only, and do not consider that the perception of potential (negative) consequences of applying these rights may change the respondents answering behaviour. Therefore, the results might be biased towards greater approval, when comparing them to items that introduce individual costs to the equation.

Acting on this critique, in a four-country survey conducted in three member states of the EU (Poland, Spain, Germany) and Turkey in 2009, we examined the three European citizenship dimensions separately (Gerhards and Lengfeld, 2015). We found relatively high approval rates, varying between 57 to 79% depending on the country and the dimension of European citizenship in all three EU countries. Only in Poland, passive suffrage was not supported by a majority of respondents (48%).

In summary, the literature generally finds a majority of supporters of European citizenship. However, these surveys either relied on too broad items, or were conducted at a time when there were only very few intra-EU migrants, no major financial crises and before immigration became one of the most important media topics. Our paper aims to close these research gaps by examining all three components of European citizenship (civil, political and social rights) with data from a survey conducted in 13 European countries in 2016 and by making use of items, which consider the potential costs of granting rights to EU foreigners.

Explaining attitudes towards European citizenship

To explain attitudes towards European citizenship, we rely on broader theoretical arguments explaining attitudes towards immigration on the one hand (Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010; Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2007) and on the theory of social cleavages on the other (Ferrera, 2005; Hutter et al., 2016; Kriesi et al., 2012). According to Hainmueller and Hiscox (2007), there are two main strands of argumentation: Structural explanations concerning the economic interest, which are frequently applied by examining the impact of skill level, employment position and wages on immigration-related attitudes, and value-based explanations focusing on traits like racial tolerance, preferences for cultural diversity, self-identification and political attitudes (Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2007: 402–406).¹ We follow this classification by differentiating between (1) structural factors and (2) ideational factors, influencing attitudes on (a) the individual level and (b) the country level (b).

(1) Structural factors: The provision of equal civil, political and social rights may counter individual and collective interests emerging from socioeconomic traits. According to social threat theory (Blalock, 1967; Ceobanu and Escandell, 2010; Schlueter and Scheepers, 2010), we assume that native citizens perceive immigrants first and foremost as competitors for scarce resources. On average, EU migrants have a lower educational level and higher unemployment rates compared to the local population.² Hence, they are more dependent on welfare state provisions and will more likely put pressure on lower skilled citizens in the job market. At this point, competition might occur between EU migrants on the one side and natives who are similarly dependent on state benefits or who perform low-skilled jobs on the other side.³

However, the assumption about competition with low-skilled EU migrants does not hold true for all countries. Eurostat data shows that in some countries the proportion of people with low educational degrees is much lower in the EU migrant population than in the national population, whereas in other countries the two groups exhibit an equal distribution of educational attainment.⁴ Accordingly, we include assumptions about the interaction between an individual’s position and the country’s specific context of educational composition of the EU migrant population.

(1a) Micro level: We assume that those in a lower socioeconomic position (in terms of employment status, occupational class or educational attainment) might fear that allowing EU migrants to work and receive social benefits in their country will lead to increased competition and thus a decrease in wages and social benefits. By contrast, the self-employed and owners of bigger businesses could benefit from increased labour supply. The same holds true for academics that might perceive the opening of labour markets as a chance for their own mobilities. Educational attainment, however, does not only indicate a person’s socioeconomic status but also their level of cognitive mobilization which then impacts peoplés values (Bello, 2017). Previous studies have shown that the less educated and the low-skilled tend to be more negatively predisposed towards migrants (Bobo and Licari, 1989; Card et al., 2012; Chandler and Tsai, 2001; Citrin et al., 1997; Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2007). We expect this effect to apply to EU migrants as well.

In 1954, Gordon W. Allport published The Nature of Prejudice, in which he outlined his contact hypothesis, which assumes that interpersonal contacts with immigrants can reduce prejudice. The contact hypothesis has been taken up and empirically tested by many researchers (Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008). Some of these studies refer to the European Union and come to the result that people who are in contact with foreigners are more likely to support the idea of open European borders and hold positive attitudes towards migrants (Callens et al., 2015; Ferrera and Pellegata, 2018; Kuhn, 2015). Based on these findings, we expect a more positive point of view towards migrants and towards the provision of equal rights for EU migrants among those with more transnational experiences and contact with foreigners.

(1b) Macro level: As stated above, mobility within the EU mainly occurs from poorer to richer countries. Accordingly, the salience and politicization around the consequences of intra-EU migration are likely to be higher in more prosperous countries, which attract more immigrants. Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) revealed an effect of a country’s economic wealth on citizens’ attitudes towards intra-EU mobility, by affecting their individual utilitarian calculations and affective considerations. Apart from discussions about employment and labour market issues, the authors expect ’concerns over redistributive politics, provision of public services, access to welfare and competition for the collective goods’ (Vasilopoulou and Talving, 2019: 6). Following these considerations, we expect the approval of equal rights for all EU citizens to be higher in less prosperous countries, where citizens are less concerned about these issues. But there are also reasons why people in less prosperous countries might be opposed to the idea of European citizenship. The freedom to migrate to another EU country can lead to a brain drain, resulting in a shortage of skilled workers such as doctors and engineers. Since the two hypotheses run in opposite directions, it could be that they neutralize each other, so that empirically no effect can be found.

Competition on the labour market not only influences low-skilled workers but is also dependent on the composition of the migrant population. Mayda (2006) argues that in countries where immigrants on average possess higher skills than nationals, the high-skilled nationals oppose immigration more strongly than they do in countries where immigrants are on average less educated than the national population. This assumption is supported by the finding that highly skilled nationals are more opposed to skilled migration than individuals with a low educational level (Facchini and Mayda, 2012).⁵ We assume that this interaction of individual and context characteristics is applicable to EU citizens’ attitudes towards equal rights. Accordingly, we expect that low-skilled nationals will show a stronger opposition to European citizenship in countries where the EU migrant population is on average less skilled than the national population. To test this assumption, we interacted the macro-structural indicator for the difference of educational composition between the national and EU migrant population with the individual educational level.

(2) Ideational factors: Several authors argue that ideational factors have a special significance when trying to explain attitudes towards migrants (Dixon et al., 2017; Ferrera and Pellegata, 2018; Ford and Lowles, 2016; Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2014).

(2a) Micro level: We hypothesize that a person’s attitude towards Europeanized equality is impacted by their general values. On the one hand, there are people who perceive migrants’ ways of life, values and skills as an enrichment for their country and its culture. This may hold true for citizens with cosmopolitan values. Yet, there are also people who reject this notion and see migrants as a threat to their own way of life (Ciornei and Recchi, 2017; Helbling and Teney, 2015; Teney et al., 2014). We expect that people who believe that immigrants enrich the cultural life of their country would also support European citizenship (Ivarsflaten, 2005). One can assume that a person’s general values are in turn influenced by a person’s quality of education (Bello, 2017).

Additionally, people’s affectual ties to the nation state and other collectives should also influence attitudes towards European citizenship: Those who exclusively identify themselves with their nation are assumed to be more skeptical towards Europeanized equality than people who identify themselves with Europe. This corresponds to Hooghe and Marks’ (2004) argument stating that people who exclusively hold national identities are more eurosceptical, whereas a European identity is associated with higher support for European integration. Lastly, political ideology might play a role. Many citizens’ basic political orientations can be projected onto a left-right political scale. As left-wing ideologies are more connected with ideas of equality, solidarity and internationalism (Fuchs and Klingemann, 1990), we assume that people who identify as left-wing would be more strongly in favour of equal rights for all European citizens than people from the political centre. Meanwhile, we expect the inverse effect for right-wing people’s stances on the topic. Among other things, the idea that citizens should enjoy privileges not enjoyed by non-citizens forms one part of the multiple ideas that constitute right-wing ideologies (Nickerson and Louis, 2008; Sides and Citrin, 2007).

(2b) Macro level: When interpreting current affairs, citizens draw on the explanations provided in the national public discourse. Most importantly, political parties, the government and social movements provide reference frames by communicating their political opinions. This process of interpreting political topics is also known as ‘cueing’ (Gilens and Murakawa, 2002; Green et al., 2002; Hooghe and Marks, 2005). Using the example of the ‘EU integration’ topic, Leonard Ray (2003) as well as Gary Marks and Marco R. Steenbergen (2004) showed that elite’s cues have a strong effect on public opinion. Moreover, Steenbergen and colleagues (2007) provided evidence that the cueing effect is stronger for extremist than for mainstream parties, as extremist parties tend to represent a certain opinion on a single issue only. In the case of far-right parties, literature suggests that a central ideological trait of this party family is nativism, which ‘combines nationalism with xenophobia in that it calls for states to comprise only members of the native group and considers non-native elements to be fundamentally threatening to the monocultural nation-state’ (Golder, 2016: 480; Mudde, 2007). We hypothesize that the cueing of right-wing parties appeals to certain values of citizens, which, in turn, influence attitudes towards EU migrants, as has been shown by Davidov and Meuleman (2012) and Bello (2017). Accordingly, we expect that the more the political elites and parties operate using xenophobic rhetoric, the more likely it is that people view migration as a threat.

Data and methods

Our analyses are based on data from an original survey conducted in 13 European countries, comprising Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden in 2016. The population were nationals living in private households and eligible to vote in the national parliament elections of the respective survey country. Interviews were conducted using computer–assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The final sample consists of 12,500 respondents with approximately 1000 respondents per country (500 in Cyprus because of its smaller population size). Our analysis includes only cases without missing values in the variables considered in the models, leading to an analysis sample of 9698 cases. Further information on the survey methodology can be found in table A.1 in the appendix, and all item wordings and recodings of here used variables are shown in table A.2 in the appendix.

The survey included three items to measure the approval of equal civil, political and social rights, where respondents were asked whether they totally disagree, tend to disagree, tend to agree or totally agree with the following statements:

There are people from other countries of the European Union who would like to live in [COUNTRY], these are so-called ‘EU migrants’. Please tell me to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements about these EU migrants:

EU migrants should be allowed to work in [COUNTRY], even if it becomes more difficult for some [CITIZENS OF COUNTRY] to find a job.

EU migrants living in my municipality should be allowed to vote in local elections, even if their votes are decisive for the outcome of the elections.

EU migrants living in [COUNTRY] should receive the same social security benefits as [CITIZENS OF COUNTRY]. ⁶

We used the term ‘EU migrants’ in our question wording. Even though this is the official term used by the EU to describe people who live in a particular EU country but originally come from another EU country, respondents might associate the term with migrants from countries outside the EU or refugees. To avoid this false association, we explained in more detail in the question wording that EU migrants are people from other countries of the European Union.

To avoid a bias towards higher approval, the first two items are formulated in a rather restricted way in that they refer to the idea of equality under constrained conditions. By including the potential negative consequences of the notion of European citizenship, we tried to ascertain which values people ‘really’ believe in. As all three rights are constitutive of the general concept of European citizenship, we calculated a summated index and rescaled it to the original scale (1–4). We ran a principal component factor analysis, which confirmed that all items load on one latent factor (results not shown but available on request), with Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.75.⁷

To measure the socioeconomic status, we used the respondent’s employment status (1 unemployed; 2 not in labor force/retired; 3 in education; 4 working) and occupational class (1 service classes; 2 routine non-manuals; 3 skilled workers/technicians; 4 self-employed; 5 unskilled workers), which was coded according to the Erikson/Goldthorpe/Portocarero class scheme (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992). The educational attainment was measured by the highest educational degree of the respondent, based on national educational system’s scales, recoded according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2010-2014 scale (European Social Survey, 2018) and summarized into three categories: low (none/lower secondary), middle (middle and higher secondary) and high (tertiary). We operationalized the degree of transnational experiences and contact with foreigners by asking the respondents whether they have regular contact with people from other countries and whether they have ever lived abroad for three months or longer.

We measured ideational factors by using three items: Firstly, cosmopolitanism, operationalized by the question whether the respondent believes that foreigners enrich the culture of their home country (1 totally disagree; 2 tend to disagree; 3 tend to agree; 4 totally agree). Secondly, the political self-placement on the right-left scale, rescaled into five ordinal categories (1 left; 2 moderate left; 3 center; 4 moderate right; 5 right) and lastly, the identification with the nation state, operationalized by a respondent’s exclusive national identification (denial of a European identity). We inserted the respondents age (in 10 years) and sex (0 male; 1 female) as control variables on the individual level.

The wealth of a country was operationalized by the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) 2015 per capita in 1000 €. The measurement of political cues by elites presented a more complicated task. As we were not able to carry out a media content analysis, we could only coarsely measure the concept empirically. We determined the strength of the xenophobic discourse in a country by measuring the proportion of votes in the most recent general elections for parties that were unequivocally against migration and refugees. The greater these parties’ representation in their respective parliaments, the greater their influence on public discourse and in turn on voters. Studies by Moshe Semyonov and colleagues (2006) and by Andrea Bohman (2011) have indicated the existence of a relation between the expression of reservations against migrants and the presence of politically influential right-wing populist parties. Finally, the difference in the educational composition between the national population and EU migrants is calculated by subtracting the share of low-skilled people (lower secondary degree or lower) in a country from the respective share in the EU migrant population of that country. Positive (negative) values indicate that the prevalence of low educational degrees is higher (lower) in the group of EU migrants.⁸

We first calculated relative frequencies⁹ for the approval of European citizenship by country (for bivariate descriptive analyses of the approval of European citizenship rights and the independent variables see appendix table A.3). For the multivariate analysis, we calculated stepwise-expanded fixed-effect linear regression models with the European citizenship index as the dependent variable. The full model results are presented in the form of a coefficient plot. The exact numbers, country dummies and stepwise models (control variables, socioeconomic factors and ideational factors were added separately to the model) are displayed in table A.4 (appendix). To compare the explanatory power of the different models, we compare the within- and between-variances of the models.

To examine the country-level effects, we applied the two-step regression (TSR) approach to our analyses.¹⁰ A TSR approach consists of two regression steps: The first step is conducted at the individual level and the second at the country level. The coefficients from the first step constitute the dependent variable in the second step. In this case, the first step was a pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression with robust standard errors. The model included the approval index for European citizenship as the dependent variable, dummy variables for all countries (Spain as reference category) to model the country-fixed effects, as well as the previously specified independent variables and the control variables from the individual level. In a second step, we took the values of the unstandardized coefficients of the country-dummy variables from the pooled OLS regression as the dependent variable and macro indicators as independent variables and ran OLS regressions at the country level to examine the effects of country characteristics. As 13 (resp. 11) countries is not enough cases to interpret the coefficients and p-values in terms of statistical inference, the results are presented in the form of scatterplots combined with regression lines, the exact numbers are reported in table A.5 in the appendix.¹¹ These plots visualize the relationship between the macro factors and the average support for equal rights in every country, controlling for composition of individual characteristics.

Results

As Figure 1 reveals, overall, 56% of EU citizens and the majority in 10 out of 13 countries support the idea that EU migrants and national citizens should be treated equally.¹² In eight out of the 10 member states where we find a majority support, approval rates vary between 51 and 63%. Only in Portugal and Spain, a vast majority of over 70% approves of Europeanized equality. In contrast, citizens from Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus do not support the notion of equal rights for all EU citizens. While the general trend leans towards the acceptance of European citizenship, results show strong country differences.

Figure 1.

Average approval of european citizenship by country (%).

The country differences in approval rates could be explained either by differences in composition between the countries, regarding certain individual-level factors like education or ideational factors, or by macro-level differences between the countries. We will further examine this in the next step of the analysis.

Figure 2 shows the results of the full linear fixed-effect regression model. OLS coefficients and 95% confidence intervals are depicted. The values of the coefficients are interpreted as the average change in the dependent variable (here: the approval index) when the independent variable is increased by one unit, holding all other variables constant. If the line representing the confidence interval does not cross the line in the middle of the x-axis, the corresponding coefficient is statistically significant on the 5% level. The country-fixed effects are modelled by country-dummy variables, which are not depicted in the figure.

Figure 2.

Coefficient plot – dependent variable: European citizenship index.

The variables concerning the contact hypothesis show significant effects in the expected direction. The results of the three socio-structural factors are mixed: While the employment status shows no significant effect on the attitudes towards European citizenship, we find significant negative effects of the lower occupational classes (in reference to the service classes). The social class position indicator shows that both the lower middle class (skilled workers/technicians) and the lower class (unskilled workers and agriculture/farmers) exhibit a significantly lower approval of European citizenship than the upper and lower service classes. Thus, our expectations concerning the higher opposition of the lower classes and lower middle class can be confirmed. Furthermore, the respondents with lower and medium educational achievement (in comparison with the high education group) approve of European citizenship to a lesser extent. As argued above, education does not only indicate a person’s socioeconomic status but also the level of cognitive mobilization which in turn impacts the values people hold. Respondents who think that their country’s culture is enriched by foreigners show a significantly more favourable attitude towards European citizenship, as well as people who place themselves on the left side of the political spectrum (in contrast to the political centre). Opposite associations are shown for people who classify themselves as politically right, and who hold an exclusively national identity. Overall, value orientations turn out to be more important than structural factors for the statistical explanation of attitudes towards European citizenship. This conclusion is also supported by the higher increase of the R² when adding the ideational factors to the model ( + 12.6%) in comparison to the increase when adding the structural factors ( + 1.7%; table A.4).

The comparison of the between-country variance between regression models shows that the structural variables do not lead to an increase in the explained variance on the country level, in contrast to the ideational variables (10% increase in the between-variance; see table A.4). However, all country dummies (except Portugal) are still highly significant in comparison to the reference country Spain. This brings us to the conclusion that country differences can be traced back to differences in a country’s composition regarding value orientations, but also to other individual- or country-level factors not included in our analysis.

To test for country-level factors, we applied the TSR approach and plotted the results as scatterplots. The data points in Figure 3 represent the coefficients of the country-dummy variables from the first-step regression model. These coefficients display the average approval for European citizenship in each country, controlled for country differences in the composition regarding the individual-level variables included in the first-step regression model. If the macro analysis shows a positive relationship between the independent macro variable and the country coefficients, this indicates an association between the macro factor and the approval of European citizenship, which is not a compositional effect of the included variables in the first regression model. However, due to the low number of cases and restricted validity of the macro indicators, these results need to be interpreted with caution.

Figure 3.

Scatter plots and regression lines of country coefficients and macro variables.

Figure 3 shows that the GDP (per capita) does not correlate with a country’s level of acceptance of Europeanized equality. This result can perhaps be attributed to the fact that two mechanisms run in opposite directions and neutralize each other: On the one hand, equal rights for all Europeans should especially be supported by citizens in less prosperous countries because it gives them the opportunity to find better jobs in wealthier countries. On the other hand, people in less prosperous countries might be threatened by open borders as the freedom to migrate to another EU country can lead to a brain drain, resulting in a shortage of skilled workers in their countries.

The share of anti-immigrant votes in the last election shows a strong negative association, and a p-value below 0.01, despite the low number of countries. As Hungary constitutes an outlier in terms of the share of anti-immigrant votes, we ran an additional regression without this case, with a similar result (depicted by the dashed line).¹³ This result supports the hypothesis that the greater right-wing parties’ representation in their national parliaments, the greater their influence on public discourse and the higher people’s rejection of European citizenship. However, when interpreting these results, one must consider that the indicator used to measure political parties’ cueing is not ideal, as we pointed out above. In addition, one has to take into account that we are not able to make assumptions about the direction of causality.

To examine the context of educational composition, we first analysed the relationship between migrant-national educational differences and acceptance rates. The pattern supports our assumption that the acceptance of European citizenship is lower in countries where EU migrants are on average less skilled than the national population, than in countries with more highly skilled immigrants. Second, we examined the association between the coefficients of the dummy variables of having a low or medium educational level with the country composition regarding educational attainment of EU migrants (not depicted). The country patterns do not match the theoretical predictions and show no considerable differences of the influence of education on the attitudes towards equal rights between the countries.¹⁴

Conclusion

We assume that the legitimacy of European citizenship has come under pressure in recent years as a result of the different crises the EU had to face, and the increased numbers of EU migrants. Based on a survey conducted in 13 EU member states in 2016, we examined to what extent EU citizens support the notion that citizens from other European countries should enjoy the same rights as nationals, and how one can explain differences in attitudes towards European citizenship within and between countries.

Using a rather conservative survey design, we found that 56% of respondents support the idea that EU migrants and nationals should be treated equally. Whereas in 10 countries a majority is in favour of European citizenship, people from Hungary, Slovakia and the Republic of Cyprus do not support the notion of a Europeanized equality. Multivariate analysis indicates that ideational factors (anti-cosmopolitan attitudes, political right-wing orientations, identification with the nation state, the framing of anti-immigrant parties) highly correlate with attitudes towards Europeanized equality, whereas structural factors that are related to individuals’ and a country’s socioeconomic position are only of minor importance. One limitation of our analysis is the fact that the country-level analysis is based on a sample of 13 EU countries out of at the time 28, meaning that both the explanatory power for the European Union as a whole, as well as the effects themselves, should be treated as preliminary results, which should be further examined in future studies. Moreover, the explanation of country differences by using relatively vague macro indices has certain limitations.

The results of our study seem to contradict findings from other studies. These differences might be traced back to differences in how attitudes were measured. First, the Eurobarometer item used by Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) specifies general, un-conditioned attitudes, which may be conflated by social desirability. The items used in our survey are formulated in a more conservative manner as they consider the potential (negative) consequences of institutionalization of European citizenship. Including the expression ‘EU migrant’ in our item formulation may also lead to lower approval rates, compared to other studies. Second, whereas Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) investigated only one dimension of EU citizenship, namely, to work in another EU country, our study has taken all three dimensions of European citizenship into account.

Which political conclusions can be drawn from our findings? European citizenship and the freedom to move across borders, is one of the core and constitutive elements of the European Union. Moreover, many politicians and politically engaged scholars consider the strengthening of citizens’ social and political rights a reasonable strategy to bring EU citizens and political institutions closer together in order to foster the idea of a socially integrated European society. However, the finding that only a slight majority of respondents agree with the idea of equality of Europeans seems to dispute this strategy. This result might be interpreted as an indication that the different EU crises, the increased migration and the rise of Euroskeptic parties have negatively influenced support for European citizenship, even if we cannot directly test this assumption, as panel data is required for that. Additionally, results also indicate a rather weak transnational integrated European space, as the freedom of movement has been one of core principles of the European Union since its very beginning in 1972, and a potential barrier for transnational mobility of European citizens.

Moreover, the most important factors affecting attitudes towards EU citizenship are ideational ones: Political right-wing orientations, nationalism and anti-cosmopolitan attitudes. Thus, opposing European citizenship is likely to be adopted by right-wing populist parties which in turn may strengthen fundamental political opposition to the very core of the European integration process. As follows, classical EU policies focusing on improvement of economic living conditions, including EU-wide social policies and initiatives, do not seem to be effective measures to strengthen the legitimacy of EU citizenship. Seen from this point of view, the EU faces a serious dilemma, as it has no suitable antidote.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research for this article is partially part of the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script” (EXC 2055, Project-ID: 390715649), which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2055. In addition, the empirical findings in this paper are based on data from the “Transnational European Solidarity Survey” (TESS). TESS is part of a joint venture between two research groups: (1) the international research project Solidarity in Europe: Empowerment, Social Justice and Citizenship – SOLIDUS funded by the European Commission in the context of the Horizon 2020 research programme (Grant Agreement No. 649489), and (2) the research unit Horizontal Europeanization funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (FOR 1539).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Clara Dilger

Notes

Dr Jürgen Gerhards is a professor of sociology at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His research interests include comparative cultural sociology and sociology of European integration.

Dr Holger Lengfeld is a professor of sociology at Leipzig University, Germany. His research fields are social stratification, political sociology, European integration research and survey methodology.

Clara Dilger, MA, is a doctoral student and research assistant at Leipzig University, Germany. Her research is centered in the field of political sociology, with a special focus on the causes of the success of right-wing populist parties, and the motives of their voters.

Appendix

Table A.1.

Survey methodology.

A. SURVEY DESIGN
Population	Adult population, eligible to vote in national elections of the selected countries, who are residents in private households and available by phone (landline or mobile).
Interview mode	Computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI)
Execution of fieldwork	Kantar TNS (formerly known as infratest dimap) Berlin, a public opinion research company specializing in electoral and political research, carried out the survey in the thirteen countries in collaboration with national, affiliated institutes belonging to the TNS group. The fieldwork was coordinated and conducted by TNS Triple C Centre in Brussels from 6 June to 15 November 2016.
Target of net interviews	12.500 interviews in total, with 1.000 per country except for Cyprus (500)
Average interview duration (planned)	25 to 30 min
B. SAMPLING DESIGN
Contact method	Landline/mobile mix of the gross sample which reflects the current standard proportions of Eurobarometer Flash.
Sampling	Random digit dialling (RDD) in all countries except Sweden: The procedure to generate a RDD sampling frame is as follows: Listed telephone numbers from a recent point in time are drawn from a database. The database that is not limited to single number providers and can be used to identify area codes and active blocks of telephone numbers as a part of the process of creating a RDD database. In this process, the two last digits of the numbers are deleted and replaced by 00 to 99. By this, also numbers not listed have a positive probability of being selected. In Sweden the sample frame was different compared to the other countries, because an address register containing 90% of all Swedish aged 16 years or more exists there. In this register, not only the landline numbers are listed, but also all registered mobile numbers (except prepaid cards). Due to the high percentage of registered persons a random sample of persons drawn based on this register. This means that the Swedish sample was a sample of individuals and not of households as it was for landline numbers in the other countries.
Stratification	NUTS 2 regions
Selection of respondent	If the number selected was a mobile number, the target person for the interview was the owner of the mobile phone. On the contrary, if the number was a landline number, the target person could have been every adult person living in the household eligible to vote. Therefore, in this case in a second step the target person had to be selected by chance. This was done using the last birthday method to identify the respondent among all persons eligible to vote in the household.
C. FIELDWORK EXECUTION AND RESULTS
	Fieldwork period 2016	Number of interviews	Average interview length (minutes)	Response rate¹⁵ (in %)
Austria	June 6 - July 6	1.010	30	1.3
Cyprus	June 7 - June 22	500	23	2.7
France	Oct 10 - Nov 5	1002	27	5.3
Germany	June 6 - July 1	1.001	28	3.0
Greece	June 9 - July 1	1.000	24	5.1
Hungary	June 6 - June 30	1.001	29	9.5
Ireland	Oct 10 - Nov 14	1.000	25	2.6
Netherlands	June 6 - July 5	1.000	39	5.5
Poland	June 6 - July 1	1.000	27	4.4
Portugal	June 6 - July 1	1.000	27	7.7
Slovakia	June 6 - July 5	1.000	29	7.6
Spain	June 6 - July 6	1.001	26	2.3
Sweden	June 7 - July 13	1.000	32	6.1
D. WEIGHTING
The weights took into account the national landline/mobile ratios, but factored in the possible response selectivity. The sample structure was compared to the actual population structure along age, gender, labour market status, regions (NUTS II), employment status (known from Eurostat 2016 and the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database), and the highest level of completed education (measured with the ES-ISCED 2010-2014 scale from the European Social Survey (ESS Round 7: European Social Survey 2016)).

Table A.2.

Item wording and recoding of variables.

Variables	Range	Item Wording
A. EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS
EU migrants	1–4	‘There are people from other countries of the European Union who would like to live in [COUNTRY], these are so called ‘EU migrants’. Please tell me to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements about these EU migrants.’ (1 totally agree, 2 tend to agree, 3 tend to disagree, 4 totally disagree)
		EU migrants living in [COUNTRY] should receive the same social security benefits as [CITIZENSOFCOUNTRY].
		EU migrants should be allowed to work in [COUNTRY], even if it becomes more difficult for some [CITIZENSOFCOUNTRY] to find a job.
		EU migrants living in my municipality should be allowed to vote in local elections, even if their votes are decisive for the outcome of the elections.
		Recoding: Approval rates (1 = 1, 2 = 1, 3 = 0, 4 = 0) Index (1 = 4, 2 = 3, 3 = 2, 4 = 1), sum of all three items divided by three
B. SOCIETAL AND POLITICAL VALUES
Political Placement	1–5	In political matters people talk of "the left" and "the right". How would you place your views on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right?
		Recoded into 5 groups (1–2 = Left; 3–5 = Moderate Left; 6 = Centre; 7–9 = Moderate Right; 10–11 = Right)
Society: Culture Enriched	1–4	I will now read to you several statements about society. Please tell me to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements: (1 totally agree, 2 tend to agree, 3 tend to disagree, 4 totally disagree) [COUNTRY]s cultural life is generally enriched by people coming to live here from other countries.
Society: Culture Enriched		Recoded (1 = 4, 2 = 3, 3 = 2, 4 = 1)
Identification	0,1	Some people think of themselves as [NATIONALITY], others as Europeans, and others as citizens of the world. What about you? (1 Yes, 2 No) Do you feel [NATIONALITY]? Do you feel European?
		Recoded (Exclusive national identity (1) = “Do you feel [NATIONALITY]?” = 1 & “Do you feel European?” = 2; Integrated European Identity (2) = “Do you feel European?” = 1)
C. SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES
Employment status	1–7	Which of the following applies to your current employment situation? Are you…
		Full time employee (30 h a week or more). Part time employee (less than 30 h a week). Self employed. Retired/pensioned. Housewife, doing housework or otherwise not employed. Student. Unemployed.
		Recoded (7 = 1, 4–5 = 2, 6 = 3, 1–3 = 4)
Class according to “Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero” (EGP)	1–9	What is your current occupation? Employed professional (employed doctor, lawyer, accountant, architect). General management, director or top management (managing directors, director general, other director). Middle management, other management (department head, junior manager, teacher, technician). Employed position, working mainly at a desk. Employed position, not at a desk but travelling (salesmen, driver, etc.) Employed position, not at a desk, but in a service job (hospital, restaurant, police, fireman, etc.). Supervisor. Skilled manual worker. Other (unskilled) manual worker, servant.
		Recoded referring to EGP class scheme (Service classes (1) = 1–3; Routine non-manual (2) = 3–6; Skilled workers/technicians (3) = 7–8; Self-employed (4); Unskilled manual workers & agriculture (5) = 9
		Remarks: The category “Self-employed 4)” was defined by another variable indication the respondent’s employment situation (see above); If respondent was currently not part of the active labor force, we asked them a similar question to indicate their prior occupation.
Education	1–3	What is the highest level of education or vocational training you have achieved?
		No formal qualification, only primary education. Lower secondary education. Upper secondary vocational education. Upper secondary education. Post secondary education, advanced vocational education below bachelor's degree level. Medium duration higher education at university or polytechnic college. Long higher education at university or polytechnic college. Other.
		Recoded (Low (1) = 1, 2; Medium (2) = 3–5; High (3) = 6, 7)
Sex	0,1	self-generated by interviewer, 1 male, 2 female
		Recoded (0 = Male; 1 = Female)
Age	18–95	Can you tell me your year of birth, please?
		Recoded (Age = 2016 - year of birth)
Contact with Foreigners	0,1	Do you have regular contact to people from other countries in your circle of friends and acquaintances? No, none Yes, but only with foreigners living in [country of resp.] Yes, but only with foreigners living abroad Yes, with foreigners living in [country of resp.] and to foreigners living abroad
		Recoded (0 = 1,3; 1 = 2,4)
Stay Abroad	1,2	Have you ever lived abroad for three months or longer, either for private or professional reasons? 1 Yes 2 No
		Recoded (0 = 2)
E. MACRO VARIABLES
GDP 2015	11.2–45.8	Gross Domestic Product per capita, 2015, in 1000 €
		Source: Eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/national-accounts/data/database?p_p_id=NavTreeportletprod_WAR_NavTreeportletprod_INSTANCE_Hx0U2oGtTuFV&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-2&p_p_col_count=3 (last access 01.04.2019)
Political Cueing	0–0.65	Share of anti-immigrant party shares
		Coded like Hobolt & de Vries (2016) with data from http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/

Source: Survey 2016.

Table A.3.

Relative frequencies of independent variables by approval to different rights and index.

	Right to work	Right to vote	Right to social benefits	Approval-Index
Total	56.8	50.8	63.1	56.9
Contact to foreigners
[0] No	53.7	49.0	59.3	54.0
[1] Yes	67.3	61.0	68.7	65.7
Lived abroad
[0] No	59.6	54.6	64.2	59.5
[1] Yes	70.1	61.9	67.4	66.5
Employment status
[1] Unemployed	50.8	53.7	64.1	56.2
[2] Not in labour force/retired	59.8	54.7	64.5	59.7
[3] In education	78.0	68.3	69.6	72.0
[4] Working	62.4	55.9	64.7	61.0
Occupational class
[1] Upper class (I)	68.2	58.9	67.6	64.9
[2] Upper middle class (II)	67.5	59.2	65.9	64.2
[3] Centre middle class (IIIa)	61.2	54.7	64.5	60.1
[4] Lower middle class (V & VI)	51.4	53.4	60.5	55.1
[5] Self-employed (IVab & IVc)	59.2	49.3	60.2	56.2
[6] Routine non-manual (IIIb)	63.3	55.2	66.8	61.8
[7] Unskilled manual workers & agriculture	57.5	59.0	64.8	60.3
Educational attainment
[1] Non- or primary	60.3	61.2	71.4	64.2
[2] Lower secondary	54.7	58.6	63.7	59.0
[3] Middle secondary	50.3	45.4	52.7	49.4
[4] Higher secondary	62.8	55.6	66.7	61.8
[5] Tertiary	75.5	63.9	73.4	70.9
Foreigners enrich culture
[1] Totally disagree	31.9	33.2	41.6	35.6
[2] Tend to disagree	47.6	42.5	54.6	48.2
[3] Tend to agree	63.0	57.2	64.7	61.6
[4] Totally agree	76.8	69.0	77.7	74.5
Identity
[1] Only National	40.4	39.1	46.7	42.1
[2] European Identity	66.9	60.2	69.3	65.5
Political self-assessment
[1] Left	70.9	71.2	78.1	73.4
[2] Moderate Left	75.5	69.5	76.0	73.7
[3] Centre	57.4	54.1	61.3	57.6
[4] Moderate Right	59.1	47.4	59.8	55.4
[5] Right	39.6	35.0	48.4	40.9

Source: Survey 2016; own calculations; n = 9.698; Notes: relative frequencies (weighed).

Table A4.

Linear fixed-effect regression on the european citizenship approval index.

Dependent variable (DV): Approval-index	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3		Model 4
Age (in 10 years)	−0.02***	(0.01)	−0.01*	(0.01)	−0.00	(0.01)	−0.01	(0.01)
Sex (Ref.: Male)	−0.08***	(0.02)	−0.08***	(0.02)	−0.08***	(0.02)	−0.09***	(0.02)
Stay abroad (Ref.: No)			0.14***	(0.02)	0.10***	(0.02)	0.07***	(0.02)
Contact with foreigners (Ref.: No)			0.21***	(0.02)	0.17***	(0.02)	0.11***	(0.02)
Employment status (Ref.: Working)
Unemployed					−0.07	(0.04)	−0.07	(0.04)
Not in labour force/retired					−0.04	(0.03)	−0.02	(0.02)
In education					0.10	(0.06)	−0.00	(0.05)
Occupational class (Ref.: Service classes)
Routine non-manuals					−0.06**	(0.02)	−0.04*	(0.02)
Skilled workers/technicians					−0.13***	(0.03)	−0.10**	(0.03)
Self-employed					−0.11*	(0.05)	−0.07	(0.04)
Unskilled workers					−0.12**	(0.04)	−0.08*	(0.04)
Educational level (Ref. High)
Low					−0.19***	(0.03)	−0.08**	(0.03)
Middle					−0.18***	(0.02)	−0.10***	(0.02)
Cosmopolitanism							0.26***	(0.01)
Political Placement (Ref.: Centre)
Left							0.21***	(0.03)
Moderate Left							0.22***	(0.02)
Moderate Right							−0.06**	(0.02)
Right							−0.19***	(0.03)
Identity: Exclusively national (Ref.: European)							−0.26***	(0.02)
Country-Dummies (Ref. Spain)
Netherlands	−0.48***	(0.04)	−0.46***	(0.04)	−0.50***	(0.04)	−0.36***	(0.04)
Germany	−0.31***	(0.04)	−0.30***	(0.04)	−0.32***	(0.04)	−0.33***	(0.04)
Poland	−0.36***	(0.04)	−0.33***	(0.04)	−0.34***	(0.04)	−0.18***	(0.04)
Sweden	−0.67***	(0.04)	−0.68***	(0.04)	−0.70***	(0.04)	−0.69***	(0.04)
Greece	−0.51***	(0.05)	−0.49***	(0.05)	−0.51***	(0.05)	−0.32***	(0.04)
Hungary	−1.10***	(0.04)	−1.04***	(0.04)	−1.03***	(0.04)	−0.92***	(0.04)
Austria	−0.45***	(0.04)	−0.47***	(0.04)	−0.48***	(0.04)	−0.40***	(0.04)
Cyprus	−0.80***	(0.06)	−0.85***	(0.06)	−0.85***	(0.06)	−0.58***	(0.06)
Ireland	−0.35***	(0.04)	−0.38***	(0.04)	−0.40***	(0.04)	−0.31***	(0.04)
Portugal	−0.16***	(0.04)	−0.15***	(0.04)	−0.12**	(0.04)	0.03	(0.04)
Slovakia	−0.91***	(0.04)	−0.89***	(0.04)	−0.87***	(0.04)	−0.69***	(0.04)
France	−0.63***	(0.04)	−0.63***	(0.04)	−0.62***	(0.04)	−0.54***	(0.04)
Constant	3.35***	(0.04)	3.12***	(0.04)	3.26***	(0.05)	2.46***	(0.06)
R ²	0.11		0.13		0.14		0.27
R² within	0.00		0.03		0.04		0.19
R² between	0.28		0.16		0.16		0.26
R² overall	0.01		0.03		0.05		0.19

Source: Survey 2016; own calculations; n = 9.698; Notes: Linear regression with robust standard errors

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Table A.5.

Linear regression of the country-level variables on the country-fixed effects (OLS-coefficients) from the first-step regression model.

DV: Average approval for European citizenship	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3
GDP 2015 per capita in 1000€	0.00	(0.97)
Share of anti-immigrant party votes			−1.18***	(0.00)
Education difference in percent					−0.01**	(0.04)
Constant	0.16	(0.47)	0.36***	(0.00)	0.15*	(0.09)
R²	0.00		0.51		0.26
n	13		13		11

Source: Survey 2016; own calculations;.

Notes: Coefficients based on linear regression; dependent variable: OLS-coefficients of the country variables from the linear regression model in step 1 of the TSR.

* p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

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